Kip, throw, dip

WOD:

For time: 21-15-9

• pull ups
• wall ball shots (20lbs/14)
• ring dips

Results: 21:50 (I think? I might have the # of minutes wrong, it may have been 20...)

Scaled pullups by using the beige (smallest) band. Scaled ring dips by using beige band.

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This was my first attempt at ring dips. It went a lot better than I thought. Honestly these dips felt more natural than putting my palms on the side of a bench and my feet up on another bench. I will always do these on the rings from now on. I had to break down to sets of 1 for much of the workout, but it is what it is. I'll gain stamina and get more comfortable with the movement over time.

My pullups kicked total ass today. I have been improving my kip and I think that is making all the difference. I can't wait to do Jackie again in a few weeks and see how I've improved from last time. I wasted a lot of time dicking around with the resistance bands on that workout, not to mention I couldn't do many pullups in a row.

Wallballs lacked leg power, until the end when my arms were too tired to take the lead and finally let my legs do the work. I already knew I needed work on these, this was a good learning moment.

Some oly lifts, yay!

"Oly" is slang for "Olympic" -- I picked that up somewhere in my perusal of Crossfit blogs the past week. I like. :)

WOD:

AMRAP 8min of:

• 5 Clean and Jerk (135 lbs/95)
• 7 ring dips

3 min rest

AMRAP 4min of:

• 5 hang power cleans (135lbs/95)
• 7 handstand push ups

Results: 3 rounds (85lbs; bench and box for dips) and 1 3/4 (85lbs, ankles over bar for HSPU)

**AMRAP stands for "as many rounds as possible".

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Wow, this workout was deceptive... I thought I would be throwing the bar up a lot faster than I did, after my first 5 C&Js I was sooooo out of breath, damn! And I was just barely able to get up the HPCs, after the jump my feet were sooo wide. It almost would've been easier to catch in a squat.

But it felt good, I'd like to do this one again sometime. And I'm happy that I learned another way to modify HSPUs. Put a bar on a squat rack, hook your feet over and hang upside down, and try to get as vertical as you can. I was really just bending my elbows a bit and then locking back out, but it's a start. I think at this point I'm going to be as excited about getting a true HSPU as I am about getting a true dead hang pullup.

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This is my last workout in the gym for a while, I'm leaving today on my trip up north. I'm going to do my best to keep working out while I'm on the road, but I do find it challenging to "program" for myself. I think if I was ever a coach or affiliate owner, I would offer "vacation programming" packages to my clients as part of their regular monthly fee. This month I paid for the whole thing, not knowing how long I'd be gone. It would just be nice to still feel like I was getting my $$$$'s worth. And given a set of equipment available, it seems to me they could come up with 5-7 workouts for me to do easily. They are the experts!

I'm taking along my 12lb dumbbells for DB hang squat cleans, thrusters, push presses, front squats, DB swings. I can borrow a broom here or there to keep working on my form for OHS and snatch. And then I've got my in-the-doorway pullup bar that I can use for jumping pullups and maybe some work on negatives. My big focus will be pushups, I'm so damn weak on those. I had worked on them a while back, and got better, but now I'm sucking again. Gotta put some time and effort into that, 2 weeks is enough time to make some decent improvements.